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    <h6 id="header">RMagick 0.0.0 User's Guide and Reference</h6>

    <div class="nav">&laquo;&nbsp;<a href="optequiv.html">Prev</a> | <a href="index.html">Contents</a> | <a href="magick.html">Next</a>&nbsp;&raquo;</div>

    <h1>Common Tasks</h1>

    <div id="toc">
      <h2>Table of Contents</h2>

      <ul style="margin-left: 15px; padding-top: 1em">
        <li><a href="#info">Getting information about an image</a></li>

        <li><a href="#convert">Converting an image to another format</a></li>

        <li><a href="#thumb">Making thumbnails</a></li>

        <li><a href="#resizing">Resizing to a maximum (or minimum) size</a></li>

        <li>
          <a href="#blob">Writing to or reading from a string instead of a file</a>
        </li>

        <li><a href="#gray">Converting a color image to grayscale</a></li>

        <li><a href="#compressing">Compressing image files</a></li>

        <li><a href="#shadow">Making a drop shadow</a></li>
      </ul>
    </div>

    <h2 id="info">Getting information about an image</h2>

    <p>
      One of the most fundamental operations on an image is simply getting basic information about the image. RMagick assigns dozens of
      <a href="imageattrs.html">attributes</a> to an image. All you have to do is read the image and then call the attribute methods. Here's a Ruby program that
      takes image filenames from the command line and then prints a variety of information about each image to the terminal.
    </p>
    <pre class="example">
require "rmagick"
ARGV.each { |file|
    puts file
    img = Magick::Image::read(file).first
    puts "   Format: #{img.format}"
    puts "   Geometry: #{img.columns}x#{img.rows}"
    puts "   Class: " + case img.class_type
                            when Magick::DirectClass
                                "DirectClass"
                            when Magick::PseudoClass
                                "PseudoClass"
                        end
    puts "   Depth: #{img.depth} bits-per-pixel"
    puts "   Colors: #{img.number_colors}"
    puts "   Filesize: #{img.filesize}"
    puts "   Resolution: #{img.x_resolution.to_i}x#{img.y_resolution.to_i} "+
        "pixels/#{img.units == Magick::PixelsPerInchResolution ?
        "inch" : "centimeter"}"
    if img.properties.length &gt; 0
        puts "   Properties:"
        img.properties { |name,value|
            puts %Q|      #{name} = "#{value}"|
        }
    end
    }
</pre
    >

    <h2 id="convert">Converting an image to another format</h2>

    <p>
      Converting an image to another format is as simple as writing the image to a file. ImageMagick uses the output filename suffix (".jpg" for JPEG, ".gif"
      for GIF, for example) or prefix ("ps:" for PostScript, for example) to determine the format of the output image.
    </p>

    <h2 id="thumb">Making thumbnails</h2>

    <p>
      RMagick gives you four different methods for resizing an image:
      <a href="image3.html#resize"><code>resize</code></a
      >, <a href="image3.html#sample"><code>sample</code></a
      >, <a href="image3.html#scale"><code>scale</code></a
      >, and <a href="image3.html#thumbnail"><code>thumbnail</code></a
      >. All four are equally easy to use. Specify the number of columns and rows you want the thumbnail to have, like this:
    </p>
    <pre class="example">
img = Image.new "bigimage.gif"
thumb = img.scale(125, 125)
thumb.write "thumb.gif"
</pre
    >

    <p>
      Alternatively, just pass a single <code>Float</code> argument that represents the change in size. For example, to proportionally reduce the size of an
      image to 25% of its original size, do this:
    </p>
    <pre class="example">
img = Image.new "bigimage.gif"
thumb = img.scale(0.25)
thumb.write "thumb.gif"
</pre
    >

    <p>
      The <code>resize</code> method gives you more control by allowing you to specify a <a href="constants.html#FilterType">filter</a> to use when scaling the
      image. Some filters produce a better-looking thumbnail at the expense of extra processing time. You can also use a <code>blur</code> argument, which
      specifies how much blurriness or sharpness the resize method should introduce.
    </p>

    <p>The <code>sample</code> method, unlike the other two, does not do any color interpolation when resizing.</p>

    <p>The <code>thumbnail</code> method is faster than <code>resize</code> if the thumbnail is less than 10% of the size of the original image.</p>

    <h3>flickr-style thumbnails</h3>

    <p>
      <a href="https://www.flickr.com">flickr</a> thumbnails are 75 pixels wide and 75 pixels tall. If the original image isn't square, the thumbnail is cropped
      in its larger dimension so that the image isn't distorted. You can get make this kind of thumbnail with the
      <a href="image3.html#resize_to_fill">resize_to_fill</a> method.
    </p>
    <pre class="example">
thumb = img.resize_to_fill(75, 75)
</pre
    >

    <h2 id="resizing">Resizing to a maximum (or minimum) size</h2>

    <p>
      Say you need to make all your thumbnails no bigger than 64x64 but with the same aspect ratio as the original. Or, you don't want to resize the image if
      it's already smaller than 64x64. The
      <a href="image1.html#change_geometry"><code>change_geometry</code></a>
      method can help.
    </p>

    <p>
      The <code>change_geometry</code> method accepts an ImageMagick
      <a href="imusage.html#geometry">geometry string</a>
      argument and a block. The geometry string specifies how to change the image's size: one or two numbers to specify the new size and optional flags to
      describe any constraints. The
      <code>change_geometry</code> method parses the geometry string and computes new width and height values. Then it calls the block, passing the values it
      computed.
    </p>

    <p>
      Within the block you can do whatever you want with the new values. Typically you'll call one of the resize methods mentioned in the previous section and
      make the resized image the return value from the block. The
      <code>change_geometry</code> method then returns that value to its caller.
    </p>

    <h3>Simple thumbnails</h3>

    <p>
      If you just want to make sure your thumbnail is no bigger than a certain width and height, use the
      <a href="image3.html#resize_to_fit">resize_to_fit</a> method.
    </p>
    <pre class="example">
thumb = img.resize_to_fit(75, 75)
</pre
    >

    <h2>
      <a id="blob" name="blob">Writing to or reading from a string instead of a file</a>
    </h2>

    <p>
      Use the <a href="image1.html#from_blob">Image.from_blob</a>
      method to construct an Image object from a string. Use the
      <a href="image3.html#to_blob">Image#to_blob</a> method to convert an image to a string. A blob is simply an in-memory version of an image file. That is,
      you could use <code>File.read</code> to read an JPEG file into a string, then create an image by using that string as an argument to
      <code>from_blob</code>. Similarly, if you create a string version of an image with <code>to_blob</code>, then write the string to a file, any image viewer
      will be able to display it just as if you had written the image directly to a file. Blobs are very useful in web applications when you want to modify an
      image and then stream it back to the client.
    </p>

    <p>
      Use <a href="image2.html#import_pixels">Image#import_pixels</a> to load pixel data from a string buffer into an image. The pixel data must be in scanline
      order, right-to-left and top-to-bottom. The data can be packed as 8-bit bytes, 16-bit halfwords, 32-bit fullwords, or as C floats or doubles. The
      reciprocal method is <a href="image3.html#export_pixels_to_str">Image#export_pixels_to_str</a>.
    </p>

    <h2 id="gray">Converting a color image to grayscale</h2>

    <p>
      Use the <a href="image3.html#quantize"><code>quantize</code></a> method with the
      <a href="constants.html#ColorspaceType">Magick::GRAYColorspace</a>
      argument. If you want real "grayscale," quantize the image to 256 colors. If you want to convert a color image to black-and-white, use 2 colors. (See the
      <code>demo.rb</code> example.)
    </p>

    <h2 id="compressing">Compressing image files</h2>

    <p>
      Many image formats, including JPEG, PDF, and BMP, support compressed image files. The type of compression used depends on the format. Specify the
      compression type by assigning a
      <a href="constants.html#CompressionType">CompressionType</a> value to the <a href="info.html#compression">compression</a> optional argument to the
      <a href="image3.html#write">write</a> method.
    </p>

    <p>
      The JPEGCompression and ZipCompression types support multiple levels of compression. Use the <a href="info.html#quality">quality</a> optional argument to
      the <code>write</code> method. The quality attribute is a number between 0 and 100, with 100 representing the least compression. When you compress an
      image using JPEGCompression, more compression usually results in a lower-quality image. When you compress an image using ZipCompression, more compression
      usually takes longer.
    </p>

    <p>
      For more information, see the ImageMagick documentation for the
      <code>-quality</code> option to the utility commands.
    </p>
    <pre class="example">
img.write("myimage.jpg") { |options| options.quality = 50 }
</pre
    >

    <h2 id="shadow">Making a drop shadow</h2>

    <p>
      Here's one way to make a drop shadow behind text. Make the shadow first by drawing the text in a light gray color. Position the text slightly to the right
      and down from where the real text will be. Then use the
      <a href="image1.html#blur_image"><code>blur_image</code></a> method to make the shadow by blurring the text. Finally, draw the text again in whatever
      color you want.
      <em>(Click the image to see the Ruby program that created it.)</em>
    </p>

    <div id="drop_shadow">
      <a href="javascript:popup('drop_shadow.rb.html')"><img src="ex/drop_shadow.gif" title="Click to see the example script" alt="drop shadow example" /></a>
    </div>
    <hr />

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